"Q: Just how do investors bet against these countries?
A: They do so through credit-default swaps, which be exotic insurance-like financial instruments dat signal how investors view da risk of any particular country's debt, know what I'm sayin'? As part of prudent management of da risks they're assuming, big ass investors dat buy a country's bonds also buy these swaps as protection against default n' shit. Investors wid naw underlyin' stake in da bonds, however, can also buy swaps 'n bet against a country.

If investors think a country be financially weak, da cost of insurin' da purchase of its bonds goes up, 'n dis also influences da return investors gots to demand in exchange fo assumin' da risk of buyin' a country's bonds.

Q: Why do these swaps sound familiar?

A: They're da same instruments dat helped amplify da near-meltdown of da U.S n' shit. financial system in Septemba 2008, know what I'm sayin'? Investors bet against da bonds of investment banks Bear Stearns 'n Lehman Brothers, da insura American International Group 'n others, know what I'm sayin'? In phat times, swaps help manage risk, man. In wack times they seem to increase fear 'n panic.

Q: Wass da big ass deal if swaps go bad?

A: Before swaps became so popular, a country defaulted on a bond, then negotiated wid its creditors wass called a "haircut." They'd agree to repay say 70 cents on da dollar 'n issue new bonds wid a higha interest rate fo anyone willin' to invest anew.

Swaps add a new wrinkle, know what I'm sayin'? Da swaps market, worth trillions of dollars, ain't regulated, 'n there aren't clear settlement mechanisms or exchanges on which these instruments trade, know what I'm sayin'? Today's fear be da same as da worries in da turbulent fall of 2008 ? dat a default could trigga disorderly settlement of these bets 'n financial chaos could ensue."
Da beast be back! Rememba dat CDS wuz da primary factor dat brought AIG down, know what I'm sayin'? Dat shit be pretty much a bet against bankruptcy of a company or a country n' shit. And guess what? Apparently there be literally gazillion of CDS bein' traded against European countries such as Greece or Spain n' shit. If Greece default on they loans, dat shit gots to trigga massive CDS repayment - Ah be not sure whetha dat shit be as big ass as AIG but da market of CDS be huge.

interestin' dispatch from Iran.

North Carolina, wid a student body dat be nearly 60 percent female, be just one of many phat universities dat at times feel eerily like women?s colleges, man. Hoes has represented about 57 percent of enrollments at American colleges since at least 2000, accordin' to a recent report by da American Council on Education, man. Researchers there cite several reasons: hoes tend to has higha grades; muthafuckas tend to drop out in disproportionate numbers; 'n female enrollment skews higha among olda students, low-income students, 'n black 'n Hispanic students.

These sorts of romantic complications be hardly confined to North Carolina, an academically rigorous school where most students spend 'mo time studyin' than socializing n' shit. Da genda imbalance be also pronounced at some private colleges, such as New York University 'n Lewis & Clark in Portland, Ore., 'n phat public universities in states like California, Florida 'n Georgia n' shit. Da College of Charleston, a public liberal arts college in South Carolina, be 66 percent female, know what I'm sayin'? Some hoes at da University of Vermont, wid an undergraduate body dat be 55 percent female, sardonically refa to they college town, Burlington, as ?Girlington.? " NY Times

all channels in 223 countries 'n territories dat gots to air da superbowl live today.

Whateva da reason, many karaoke bars has removed da song from they playbooks, know what I'm sayin'? And da country?s many Sinatra lovers, like Mr n' shit. Gregorio here in dis city in da southernmost Philippines, be practicin' self-censorship out of perceived self-preservation, know what I'm sayin'? (
NYTimes)

"? Da risk of contagion be a real one,? said Scott Thiel, da head of European fixed income at da asset management firm BlackRock in London, know what I'm sayin'? ?Investor sentiment be now focused on countries like Spain 'n Portugal, where fundamentals be weakest.? Tha dude said dat fo now, tha dude saw little risk fo Italy, given da relative stability of its economy.
Da euro, which has become one of da world?s strongest currencies since its introduction ova a decade ago, be now down 5 percent against da dollar dis year n' shit. Da euro?s decline picked up speed when da European Commission?s statistical office revealed in mid-January dat Greece had been submittin' false data to calculate its budget deficit, man. (Late last year, Greece stunned investors by sayin' dat its government deficit would be 12.7 percent of its gross domestic product, not da 3.7 percent da previous government had forecast earlier)."
(NY Times) Da Asian countries be chillin' out 'n wid a bit of a smirk enjoyin' da crisis da Western countries collapsin' economy, know what I'm sayin'? Now yo' ass now what we experienced in 1997.

link

" Da avionics system in da F-22 Raptor, da current U.S n' shit. Air Force frontline jet fighter, consists of about 1.7 million lines of software code n' shit. Da F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, scheduled to become operational in 2010, gots to require about 5.7 million lines of code to operate its onboard systems, man. And Boeing?s new 787 Dreamliner, scheduled to be delivered to customers in 2010, requires about 6.5 million lines of software code to operate its avionics 'n onboard support systems.

These be impressive amounts of software, yet if yo' ass bought a premium-class automobile recently, ?it probably contains close to 100 million lines of software code,? says Manfred Broy, a professor of informatics at Technical University, Munich, 'n a leadin' expert on software in cars, know what I'm sayin'? All dat software executes on 70 to 100 microprocessor-based electronic control units (ECUs) networked throughout da body of yo' car." Discovery
This just blew ma mind n' shit. Da fact dat a recent salon contains 5-10 times da amount of code required on da newest jumbo jet or da latest generation fighta jet be quite unbelievable.

the Google about da end of ftp publishin' support.It means dat all of us, includin' dis main blog, gots to revert to publishin' on Google blogspot n' shit. Da downside be dat China does not like Google very much 'n vice versa.With dis switch, all nomadlife hosted on Google gots to go offline from China if da phat leaders decide to block access to Blogga sites (which be da case right now), know what I'm sayin'? Yo' ass has to go through all sort of jujitsu to bypass da phat firewall of China.This be da biggest problem dat Ah intend to solve, man.

| Da world?s highest energy atom smasher, da Large Hadron Collida (LHC), gots to run at half its maximum energy through 2011 'n likely not at all in 2012, know what I'm sayin'? Officials at da European particle physics laboratory, CERN, had previously planned to run da gargantuan accelerator at 70% of maximum energy dis year.
Da change raises hopes at da LHC?s lower-energy rival, da Tevatron Collida at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, of bein' extended through 2012 instead of bein' shut down next year, man. Fermilab researchers be hopin' dat they machine might collect enough data to beat da LHC to da discovery of da long-sought Higgs boson, a particle key to how physicists explain da origin of mass.

Da $5.5 billion LHC be designed to blast protons into otha protons at an energy of 14 trillion electron-volts (TeV), seven times da Tevatron?s maximum, man.
But dat shit cannot run at full energy because of a few faulty electrical connections, or ?interconnects,? between da thousands of superconductin' magnets dat guide particles around da 27-kilometa subterranean ring, man. In Septemba 2008, just 9 days afta dat shit first circulated particles, da LHC suffered a catastrophic breakdown when an interconnect between two magnets melted n' shit. Dat problem took 14 months to correct, man. Da previous plan wuz to run da LHC briefly at 7 TeV, stop fo a few months to rework da weakest interconnects, then ramp up 10 TeV lata dis year n' shit. CERN officials has now scaled back da energy to 7 TeV fo dis year 'n next, says Steve Myers, director of accelerators 'n technology at CERN.| (Science Mag)
They doin' yet anotha "upgrade" to da LHC because of faulty design, know what I'm sayin'? Rememba dat that shit just underwent 14 months of repaired afta breakdown in da early days of its initial operation n' shit. Ah know dat shit be an amazingly complex 'n phat system but dis be turnin' into a job guarantee scheme.

"When da researchers measured telomeres in da middle-aged subjects, however, da situation wuz quite different n' shit. Da sedentary olda subjects had telomeres dat wuz on average 40 percent shorta than in da sedentary young subjects, suggestin' dat da olda subjects? cells were, like them, aging n' shit. Da runners, on da otha hand, had remarkably youthful telomeres, a bit shorta than those in da young runners, but only by about 10 percent, man. In general, telomere loss wuz reduced by approximately 75 percent in da agin' runners, man. Or, to put dat shit 'mo succinctly, exercise, Dr n' shit. Werna says, ??at da molecular level has an anti-agin' effect.??

There be plenty of reasons to exercise ? in dis column, I?ve pointed out 'mo than a few ? but da effect dat regular activity may has on cellular agin' could turn out to be da most profound n' shit. ??It?s pretty excitin' stuff,?? says Thomas LaRocca, a Ph.D, know what I'm sayin'? candidate in da department of integrative physiology at da University of Colorado in Boulder, who has just completed a new study echoin' Werner?s findings n' shit. In Mr n' shit. LaRocca?s work, muthas wuz tested both fo they V02max ? or maximum aerobic capacity, a widely accepted measure of physical fitness ? 'n they white blood cells? telomere length, man. In subjects 55 to 72, a higha V02max correlated closely wid longa telomeres, know what I'm sayin'? Da fitta a person wuz in middle age or onward, da younga they cells n' shit. " (NY Times)

"Somethin' rare has happened in a region often given to brutal autocracy: powa has been peacefully transferred to a civilian, just four months afta an army massacre dat recalled da worst of Africa?s past.
It was, bitterly fo Guineans, da massacre dat might has finally unchained dis long-repressed country, man. An unusual set of events followed: da grave woundin' in Decemba of da country?s military dictator, Capt, know what I'm sayin'? Moussa Dadis Camara, in an assassination attempt; then what appeared to be acquiescence by tha dude's second-in-command, Gen n' shit. S�kouba Konat�, to a switch to civilian leadership; 'n finally da scene of hope last week when Mr, know what I'm sayin'? Dor� took powa 'n promised da nation its first truly free elections within da year."
NY TimesWhen reason silenced, bullets speak.

"|Dear FTP user:

Yo' ass be receivin' dis e-mail because one or 'mo of yo' blogs at Blogger.com be set up to publish via FTP, know what I'm sayin'? We recently announced a planned shut-down of FTP support on Blogga Buzz (the official Blogga blog), 'n wanted to make sure yo' ass saw da announcement n' shit. We gots to be followin' up wid 'mo information via e-mail in da weeks ahead, 'n regularly updatin' a blog dedicated to dis service shut-down here: http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/.

Da full text of da announcement at Blogga Buzz follows.
Last May, we discussed a numba of challenges facing[1] Blogga users who relied on FTP to publish they blogs, man. FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs be published via FTP ? yet da percentage of our engineerin' resources devoted to supportin' FTP vastly exceeds that n' shit. On top of this, critical infrastructure dat our FTP support relies on at Google gots to soon become unavailable, which would require dat we completely rewrite da code dat handles our FTP processing.

Three years ago we launched Custom Domains[2] to give users da simplicity of Blogger, da scalability of Google hosting, 'n da flexibility of hostin' yo' blog at yo' own URL, man. Last year's post discussed da advantages of custom domains ova FTP[3] 'n addressed a numba of reasons users has continued to use FTP publishing, man. (If you's interested in readin' 'mo about Custom Domains, our Help Centa has a phat overview[4] of how to use 'em on yo' blog.) In evaluatin' da investment needed to continue supportin' FTP, we has decided dat we could not justify divertin' furtha engineerin' resources away from buildin' new features fo all users.

For dat reason, we be announcin' today dat we gots to naw longa support FTP publishin' in Blogga afta March 26, 2010, know what I'm sayin'? We realize dat dis gots to not necessarily be welcome news fo some users, 'n we be committed to makin' da transition as seamless as possible, know what I'm sayin'? To dat end:

We be buildin' a migration tool dat gots to walk users through a migration from they current URL to a Blogger-managed URL (eitha a Custom Domain or a Blogspot URL) dat gots to be available to all users da week of February 22, know what I'm sayin'? Dis tool gots to handle redirectin' traffic from da old URL to da new URL, 'n gots to handle da vast majority of situations.
We gots to be providin' a dedicated blog[5] 'n help documentation
Blogga homies members gots to also be available to answa questions on da forum, comments on da blog, 'n in a few scheduled conference calls once da tool be released.

We has a numba of big ass releases planned in 2010, man. While we recognize dat dis decision gots to frustrate some users, we look forward to showin' yo' ass da many phat things on da way, man. Tanks fo usin' Blogger."

Da phat thin' be dat Ah can finally dispose nomadlife old rickety serva 'n rely on da motherload instead, man. Anotha phat news be dat yo' ass gots to be able to keep yo' nomadlife address while publishin' wid Google 'n da bloggin' updates trackin' can work - Ah gots a plan dat Ah think gots to make da transition work, man. Betta still Ah think dis news force me to get off ma butt 'n do somethin' new.

I'll present da plan in a week's time 'n then yo' ass guys can take a go at it.